The Last Stand (The Eleven Years War: Book One)
Chapter Ten

Olrick felt like he was going to die.

He’dspent about a half an hour running down the road to Asfalis, with Elise cradledin his arms, and he was starting to feel the affects of it. He’d expected it tobe easy: Asfalis was only five miles or so away from Thaos, a run that, undernormal circumstances, would have been easy for him. However, those were notnormal circumstances. Not only was he carrying an unconscious girl in his arms,but he’d just been through hell under the Giskens: his body was nowhere near inthe right shape for the run. Despite the fact that he’d chewed quite a bit ofcocca before he left Thaos, his injured shoulders burned, his ribs (most ofwhich, he was sure, were broken) were on fire, his burned sides throbbed; ittook every ounce of strength he had just to put one foot in front of another.

Nomatter how much he wanted to stop and rest, though, he didn’t. With each minutethat passed, Elise’s condition seemed to grow worse and worse. Her shaking gotworse, her skin got paler, she was beginning to groan quietly, as if in pain; Olrickwasn’t very sure on what had made her pass out, but whatever it was, it seemedlike it could kill her if he stopped for very long. In fact, the only time he did stop was to take off his cloak andwrap it around her in an attempt to get her warmer.

Besides,he was fairly sure that if he didstop to rest, he wouldn’t be able to get back up again.

Finally,he began to see some signs that the end of his run was over: he began to seesmaller paths leading off the main road, leading to the small homesteads thatwas fairly common in Asfalis: the town depended heavily on game in thesurrounding woods for income, so, in order to avoid competition with eachother, everyone but the rich and the tradesmen actually lived inside the town.It was a sign that he only had a mile or so to go before he arrived.

C’mon, Olrick, he thought to himself. You can do this; push a little harder.Groaning, his legs began to pick up the pace, until he was practicallysprinting into Asfalis.

Thedecision nearly killed him.

Bythe time he’d reached the gates of Fort Asfalis, on the other side of the town,he couldn’t seem to get air into his lungs. He practically staggered toward thegate, where two guards wearing the black cloaks of the Watch’s sisterorganization, the Rooks, stood. The taller of the two had a massive broadswordstrapped to his back, while the other one held a slender fighting staff tallerthan its owner. Both held lanterns that illuminated faces Olrick immediatelyrecognized.

Hewould have smiled, if he hadn’t been so damned exhausted. Of all the people tobe standing guard that night, it just happened to be those two.

“Whogoes there?!” Silas, the taller of the two, barked over the pouring rain. Eza’sgrip on her staff tightened as she prepared for a fight. It looked like theycouldn’t tell who was coming towards them. Olrick would have called out hisname to tell them who it was so they wouldn’t kill him, as they were supposedto if someone came anywhere near the fort without identifying themselves, buthe didn’t have to. His legs finally buckled beneath him, and he fell to hisknees and into the mud, panting.

“Stayhere.” Silas came running over to investigate as black dots began to dance inOlrick’s vision.

Hetried to blink them away. Stay awake;stay awake, damn it!

“Olrick?”He felt hands on his shoulders. When he looked up, he saw that Silas was downon one knee, holding his swaying body steady. “Olrick, what the hell happenedto you?” Olrick held Elise’s quivering body out to him, his arms shaking evenmore than she was.

“G-gether inside,” he managed to say. Confused, Silas took her in his arms. He lookedover his shoulder at Eza, who was still standing by the gate. It seemed thatshe’d decided that then wasn’t the best time to be disregarding orders.

“Getdoc out here!” that was the last thing Olrick remembered before passing out.

Silasstared at the Olrick and the girl he’d been carrying as they lay in their cots,unconscious. Doc, the Mirinian alchemist who served as Fort Asfalis’ chief physician,was sitting between their cots on a rickety, three-legged stool, going back andforth between the two as he tried to figure out what was wrong with them. Olrick’sdiagnosis had been fairly obvious, at first: he’d ran himself into exhaustion,something that they normally saw in recruits during the first month of training.It made more sense when they’d discovered the multitude of bruises, burns, andother injuries hidden under his shirt.

Thegirl, however, was a little more of a mystery. She looked like hell, with herghastly pale skin, quivering body and labored breathing, like she had the fluor something like that. Her symptoms didn’t match any disease Doc knew of,though. It seemed that she was sick without having an actual illness.

“Arethey going to be alright?” Silas asked. Doc looked over his shoulder at him.

“Believeme, they look a whole lot worse than they actually are,” he said. Silas raisedan eyebrow, unconvinced. Doc sighed and ran a hand through his neatly trimmed,dark hair, a nervous tick that, despite his best efforts, he hadn’t been ableto get rid of.

“Olrick’spretty beat up and ran himself into exhaustion, but he’ll be alright,” he said.“He just needs a few days or so of bed rest, is all.” Silas nodded at the girl,who had a little more color in her cheeks, though she still didn’t look great.

“Andthe girl?” Doc looked over at her, then back at Silas.

“Imust admit, she took me awhile,” he said. “I figured it out after I gave up onlooking for a natural means for it.” Silas’ eyes narrowed.

“Youcan take this cryptic crap of yours and shove it up your ass, Doc,” he said.Doc gave him a look, the same one that a parent might give a child when theyknow they’re lying. “Now, get to the point, before I do it for you.” Doc simplyshook his head and chuckled; threats from the head of Caithian intelligence hadstopped fazing him a long time ago.

“She’sa mage, a pyromancer, from the looks of her symptoms and how hot her handswere, despite how cold the rest of her is,” Doc said. When he saw the confusedlook on his face, he continued. “According to tradition, everyone has a magicalenergy called an aura, which mages are able to manipulate in the physicalworld. When they run out of aura to manipulate, something like this happens.She’ll be out for awhile and she’ll have a pounding headache when she wakes up,but otherwise, she’ll be just fine.”

Silas shouldersslouched, relieved. Thank the gods; he hadn’t been looking forward to tellingOlrick’s mother that her son wasn’t going to make it, or to burying an innocentgirl who’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Whenwill they be up?” Silas asked.

“Afew hours, probably,” Doc said. “I know that you aren’t going to listen to meabout this, but I would suggest not talking to them about whatever happened fora few days; we don’t want them too overwhelmed by their ordeal.” He stood upand shoved his hands into his trouser pockets.

“IsEza handling this okay?” he asked. Silas sighed; he hadn’t even thought abouthow the kid was handing all this. Sure, he hadn’t told her that the Giskenswere on a rampage through Caitha, but, though she was young, she wasn’t anidiot; he’d likely figured it out, by now. Only the gods knew exactly how shefelt about the situation. If she were scared, she’d never admit it.

“I’llcheck up on her when she gets back,” he said. “She went off to get Olrick’smother; the poor woman’s been worried sick about him since he went missing.”Silas walked out of the small cabin that served as Fort Asfalis’ infirmary andinto the wet night to replace a thoroughly soaked Eza sitting on the small porch,her fighting staff in hand. She was staring off into the distance, across thetraining field and at the barracks on the other side of the fort.

“Youreplace Olrick’s ma?” Eza Mitriovna looked up at him and nodded. She looked calmand collected, as always, but her eyes were filled with the fiery determinationshe was known for and fear, an emotion most didn’t know she was capable of.

“Imanaged to catch her without that damnable husband of hers,” she said. “She’sat an inn in town.”

“AndGeneral Polain?” Eza gave him a weird look, one that seemed to ask if hethought she was some sort of an idiot.

“Heknows, but he won’t visit him until the morning; he didn’t want to sit at hisbedside all night, waiting for him to wake up.” Silas sat down next to her, andfor the next few minutes, there was silence between them as they listened tothe rain patter the roof above them and the sound of distant thunderclaps.

“TheGiskens are back, aren’t they?” she asked. Silas nodded; he didn’t see anypoint in lying to one of the highest-ranking officers in the Caithian army.

Eza’sgrip on her staff tightened and her brows furrowed in anger. Silas couldn’t evenimagine what was going through her mind. Most people in a situation like herswould probably have started planning an escape to Mirinia the second theycaught word that the Giskens had invaded.

Thenagain, Eza wasn’t like most people.

“I’mgoing to give you a week’s furlough in the morning,” Silas said. “Use it to dowhatever it is you do to clear your head, then get your ass back here.” Shelooked up at him, an all-too familiar fire in her eyes.

“You’renot getting rid of me,” she said. She looked back at her staff. “I’m notrunning away like some sort of coward, again.”

“Ithink you may have missed the part about getting your ass back here after theweek’s over,” Silas said. “You’re not running; you’re taking a little breakfrom this war business before you do something stupid, like come up with ahalf-assed plan to raid the Gisken camp all by yourself.” Eza took a deepbreath and sighed.

“Ihaven’t gotten a break from this in ten years, Silas,” she said. “I think I’llbe fine for a few more weeks.”

“DoI need to order you to leave?”

“Idon’t know; do I need to disobey a direct order?” Silas found himself laughing,despite himself. What had he turned her into?

“Whendid you turn into this?” he asked himself. “If you’re going to stick around,then you’re going to help me whip some trainees into submission; gods know theyneed it.”